Some recently
found fossils also invalidate the evolutionist scenario regarding
Archaeopteryx in other respects.

Lianhai Hou and Zhonghe Zhou,
two paleontologists at the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate
Paleontology, discovered a new bird fossil in 1995, and named
it Confuciusornis. This fossil is almost the same age as Archaeopteryx
(around 140 million years), but has no teeth in its mouth.
In addition, its beak and feathers share the same features
as today's birds. Confuciusornis has the same skeletal
structure as modern birds, but also has claws on its wings,
just like Archaeopteryx. Another structure peculiar
to birds called the "pygostyle," which supports the tail feathers,
was also found in Confuciusornis.134 In
short, this fossil-which is the same age as Archaeopteryx,
which was previously thought to be the earliest bird and was
accepted as a semi-reptile-looks very much like a modern bird.
This fact has invalidated all the evolutionist theses claiming
Archaeopteryx to be the primitive ancestor of all birds.

Confuciusornis, which lived
at the same time as Archaeopteryx, has many similarities
to modern birds.

Another
fossil unearthed in China caused even greater confusion. In
November 1996, the existence of a 130-million-year-old bird
named Liaoningornis was announced in Science by L.
Hou, L. D. Martin, and Alan Feduccia. Liaoningornis had a
breastbone to which the muscles for flight were attached,
just as in modern birds.135 This bird was
indistinguishable from modern birds in other respects, too.
The only difference was the teeth in its mouth. This showed
that birds with teeth did not possess the primitive structure
alleged by evolutionists. That Liaoningornis had the features
of a modern bird was stated in an article in Discover,
which said, "Whence came the birds? This fossil suggests that
it was not from dinosaur stock."136

Another fossil that refuted
the evolutionist claims regarding Archaeopteryx was
Eoalulavis. The wing structure of Eoalulavis,
which was said to be some 25 to 30 million years younger than
Archaeopteryx, was also observed in modern slow-flying
birds.137 This proved that 120 million
years ago, there were birds indistinguishable from modern
birds in many respects, flying in the skies.

These facts once more indicate for certain that
neither Archaeopteryx nor other ancient birds similar
to it were transitional forms. The fossils do not indicate
that different bird species evolved from each other. On the
contrary, the fossil record proves that today's modern birds
and some archaic birds such as Archaeopteryx actually
lived together at the same time. It is true that some of these
bird species, such as Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis,
have become extinct, but the fact that only some of the species
that once existed have been able to survive down to the present
day does not in itself support the theory of evolution.